Biography

(Afterward known as "St. Clotilda," the first Queen of France.) A.D. 485.

(Afterwards the Great Empress Woo of China.) A.D. 635.

(Afterward known as the "Good Queen Maud" of England.) A.D. 1093.

On a broad and deep window-seat in the old Abbey guest-house at Gloucester, sat two young girls of thirteen and ten; before them, brave-looking enough in his old-time costume, stood a manly young fellow of sixteen. The three were in earnest conversation, all unmindful of the noise about them—the romp and riot of a throng of young folk, attendants, or followers of the knights and barons of King William's court.

Count William of Hainault, of Zealand and Friesland, Duke of Bavaria and Sovereign Lord of Holland, held his court in the great, straggling castle which he called his "hunting lodge," near to the German Ocean, and since known by the name of "The Hague."(1)

(1) "The Hague" is a contraction of the Dutch's Gravenhage—the haag, or "hunting lodge," of the Graf, or count.

(Afterward known as Queen of Cyprus and "Daughter of the Republic.") A.D. 1466.

"Who is he? Why do you not know, Catarina mia? 'T is his Most Puissant Excellency, the mighty Lord of Lusignan, the runaway Heir of Jerusalem, the beggar Prince of Cyprus, with more titles to his name—ho ho, ho!—than he hath jackets to his back; and with more dodging than ducats, so 't is said, when the time to pay for his lodging draweth nigh. Holo, Messer Principino! Give you good-day, Lord of Lusignan! Ho, below there here is tribute for you."

(Afterward known as St. Theresa of Avila.) A.D. 1525.

It is a stern and gray old city that the sun looks down upon, when once he does show his jolly face above the saw-like ridges of the grim Guadarrama Mountains in Central Spain; a stern and gray old city as well it may be, for it is one of the very old towns of Western Europe—Avila, said by some to have been built by Albula, the mother of Hercules nearly four thousand years ago.

(Afterward Queen Elizabeth of England; the "Good Queen Bess.") A.D. 1548.

The iron-shod hoofs of the big gray courser rang sharply on the frozen ground, as, beneath the creaking boughs of the long-armed oaks, Launcelot Crue, the Lord Protector's fleetest courser-man, galloped across the Hertford fells or hills, and reined up his horse within the great gates of Hatfield manor-house.

A.D. 1636.

There were tears and trouble in Stockholm; there was sorrow in every house and hamlet in Sweden; there was consternation throughout Protestant Europe. Gustavus Adolphus was dead! The "Lion of the North" had fallen on the bloody and victorious field of Lutzen, and only a very small girl of six stood as the representative of Sweden's royalty.

(Generally known as "The Princess Pocahontas.") A.D. 1607.

Throughout that portion of the easterly United States where the noble bay called the Chesapeake cuts Virginia in two, and where the James, broadest of all the rivers of the "Old Dominion," rolls its glittering waters toward the sea, there lived, years ago, a notable race of men.

Stories of girls who have influenced the history of their times

by E. S. Brooks